This Mess We're In

"Through intricately detailed drawing I explore our complicated relationship with the natural world, interweaving themes of interdependency, accountability, vulnerability and resilience.

The climate crisis we find ourselves in feels so enormous, so incomprehensible on so many levels, that our anxiety can lead to paralysis – it’s not that we don’t care, often we don’t know how to care. The grief and disempowerment are too difficult to engage with, along with the guilt that comes with feeling complicit in environmental destruction, so we look away.

My work seeks to give space to these overwhelming feelings, along with dissolving some of the nature/culture polarity that has become so engrained in our contemporary society. Much of my process involves a direct, tactile engagement with the natural environment – literally entangling my own body with nature where it becomes an extension of my own self.

Our survival depends upon a delicate balance, a gentle dance of reciprocity, nurturing, empathy and humility: if our environment is not thriving, then we also suffer. I can’t solve the climate crisis with drawings, all I can do is reflect on my own place in the order of things as custodian, collaborator, carer and student of the natural world."